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Participants were invited to make individual or joint commitments to help achieve the Agenda for Humanity. In addition, they were invited to align themselves to 32 core commitments developed for the 7 High-level Leaders’ Roundtables of the World Humanitarian Summit. Each stakeholders commitments are organized by commitment type in the table below.

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1B
Act early

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • UNICEF commits to include conflict analysis, conflict sensitivity, and early warning, as an integral part of its operations, including in support of the Secretary General'™s Human Rights Upfront initiative.


  • Operational
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to act early upon potential conflict situations based on early warning findings and shared conflict analysis, in accordance with international law.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to make successful conflict prevention visible by capturing, consolidating and sharing good practices and lessons learnt.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

1C
Remain engaged and invest in stability

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to improve prevention and peaceful resolution capacities at the national, regional and international level improving the ability to work on multiple crises simultaneously.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to sustain political leadership and engagement through all stages of a crisis to prevent the emergence or relapse into conflict.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts
  • Commit to address root causes of conflict and work to reduce fragility by investing in the development of inclusive, peaceful societies.
  • Political Leadership to Prevent and End Conflicts

2A
Respect and protect civilians and civilian objects in the conduct of hostilities

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF will seek to end grave violations against children through strengthening its monitoring and reporting on child rights violations in situations of armed conflict and other crises and by supporting systems and procedures to respond to the needs of affected children and their families.
  • Operational
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • UNICEF will strengthen its advocacy with Member States and parties to conflict to stop the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas, as well as attacks on, and the military use of, civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, and water facilities.
  • Advocacy
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance the protection of civilians and civilian objects, especially in the conduct of hostilities, for instance by working to prevent civilian harm resulting from the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas, and by sparing civilian infrastructure from military use in the conduct of military operations.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

2B
Ensure full access to and protection of the humanitarian and medical missions

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • In its engagement with governments and non-state actors, UNICEF commits to actively promote the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence in humanitarian action by continuing to base its actions on the rights and needs of children.
  • Advocacy
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • UNICEF will continue to advocate for Member States and parties to conflict to end all attacks on health facilities, personnel and transport and to allow the provision of health services.
  • Advocacy
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to ensure all populations in need receive rapid and unimpeded humanitarian assistance.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Commit to promote and enhance efforts to respect and protect medical personnel, transports and facilities, as well as humanitarian relief personnel and assets against attacks, threats or other violent acts.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

2C
Speak out on violations

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

2D
Take concrete steps to improve compliance and accountability

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to using open source software platforms (e.g. RapidPro) to support real-time GBV risk mapping and analysis, as well as strengthening accountability mechanisms, from tracking quality of services to feedback loops, to improve GBV programming in emergencies.
  • Operational
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

  • UNICEF commits to adopt the IASC statement on the Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse at the individual agency level.


  • Policy
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Commit to speak out and systematically condemn serious violations of international humanitarian law and serious violations and abuses of international human rights law and to take concrete steps to ensure accountability of perpetrators when these acts amount to crimes under international law.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Implement a coordinated global approach to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis contexts, including through the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity
  • Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women's empowerment, and women's rights.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

2E
Uphold the rules: a global campaign to affirm the norms that safeguard humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to promote and enhance respect for international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and refugee law, where applicable.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity

3A
Reduce and address displacement

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to a new approach to addressing forced displacement that not only meets immediate humanitarian needs but reduces vulnerability and improves the resilience, self-reliance and protection of refugees and IDPs. Commit to implementing this new approach through coherent international, regional and national efforts that recognize both the humanitarian and development challenges of displacement. Commit to take the necessary political, policy, legal and financial steps required to address these challenges for the specific context.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Commit to promote and support safe, dignified and durable solutions for internally displaced persons and refugees. Commit to do so in a coherent and measurable manner through international, regional and national programs and by taking the necessary policy, legal and financial steps required for the specific contexts and in order to work towards a target of 50 percent reduction in internal displacement by 2030.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Acknowledge the global public good provided by countries and communities which are hosting large numbers of refugees. Commit to providing communities with large numbers of displaced population or receiving large numbers of returnees with the necessary political, policy and financial, support to address the humanitarian and socio-economic impact. To this end, commit to strengthen multilateral financing instruments. Commit to foster host communities' self-reliance and resilience, as part of the comprehensive and integrated approach outlined in core commitment 1.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Commit to collectively work towards a Global Compact on responsibility-sharing for refugees to safeguard the rights of refugees, while also effectively and predictably supporting States affected by such movements.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Commit to actively work to uphold the institution of asylum and the principle of non-refoulement. Commit to support further accession to and strengthened implementation of national, regional and international laws and policy frameworks that ensure and improve the protection of refugees and IDPs, such as the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol or the AU Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala convention) or the Guiding Principles on internal displacement.
  • Leave No One Behind

3D
Empower and protect women and girls

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Empower Women and Girls as change agents and leaders, including by increasing support for local women's groups to participate meaningfully in humanitarian action.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome documents of their review conferences for all women and adolescent girls in crisis settings.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Ensure that humanitarian programming is gender responsive.
  • Leave No One Behind
  • Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women's empowerment, and women's rights.
  • Uphold the Norms that Safeguard Humanity Leave No One Behind

3E
Eliminate gaps in education for children, adolescents and young people

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to support the effective implementation of the Education Crisis Platform and to respond collaboratively, with a particular emphasis on enabling humanitarian and development actors to put in place quick, strategic and agile responses to support the education needs of children in crisis.
  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

3G
Address other groups or minorities in crisis settings

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to collecting/supporting governments to collect quantitative and qualitative data on children with disabilities, disaggregated by age and sex that are comparable, reliable and ethically collected.
  • Operational
  • Leave No One Behind

  • UNICEF endorses the Charter on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Humanitarian Action.


  • Policy
  • Leave No One Behind

4A
Reinforce, do not replace, national and local systems

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to support the capacity development of sub-national coordination mechanisms to allow for more effective leadership and coordination of the sectoral/ cluster response in the event of an emergency, and where relevant a more timely transition to national coordination structures, including transfer of skills and resources.
  • Capacity
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • UNICEF commits to systematically consider cash based programming in ways that build on and form the basis for sustainable social protection systems.
  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • UNICEF commits to establishing a common approach to providing information to affected people and collecting, aggregating and analysing feedback from communities to influence decision-making processes at strategic and operational levels.


  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

  • UNICEF commits to adopt the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and International Aid Transparency Initiative Standard, with clear benchmarks for achieving these through the CHS Alliance self-assessment tool.


  • Policy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • Commit to reinforce national and local leadership and capacities in managing disaster and climate-related risks through strengthened preparedness and predictable response and recovery arrangements.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • Commit to increase investment in building community resilience as a critical first line of response, with the full and effective participation of women.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • Commit to ensure regional and global humanitarian assistance for natural disasters complements national and local efforts.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • Commit to increase substantially and diversify global support and share of resources for humanitarian assistance aimed to address the differentiated needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises in fragile situations and complex emergencies, including increasing cash-based programming in situations where relevant.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to empower national and local humanitarian action by increasing the share of financing accessible to local and national humanitarian actors and supporting the enhancement of their national delivery systems, capacities and preparedness planning.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

4B
Anticipate, do not wait, for crises

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to strengthen community resilience including through support to risk-informed programming, Disaster Risk Reduction, Climate Change Adaptation and Low Carbon Development.
  • Operational
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need
  • Commit to accelerate the reduction of disaster and climate-related risks through the coherent implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other relevant strategies and programs of action, including the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to improve the understanding, anticipation and preparedness for disaster and climate-related risks by investing in data, analysis and early warning, and developing evidence-based decision-making processes that result in early action.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

4C
Deliver collective outcomes: transcend humanitarian-development divides

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility

  • For an integrated approach to resilient development and recovery, UNICEF will establish an "Integration Fund" to support programmes that systematically address vulnerability in fragile contexts and contribute to longer-term system strengthening.


  • Financial
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to a new way of working that meets people's immediate humanitarian needs, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years through the achievement of collective outcomes. To achieve this, commit to the following: a) Anticipate, Do Not Wait: to invest in risk analysis and to incentivize early action in order to minimize the impact and frequency of known risks and hazards on people. b) Reinforce, Do Not Replace: to support and invest in local, national and regional leadership, capacity strengthening and response systems, avoiding duplicative international mechanisms wherever possible. c) Preserve and retain emergency capacity: to deliver predictable and flexible urgent and life-saving assistance and protection in accordance with humanitarian principles. d) Transcend Humanitarian-Development Divides: work together, toward collective outcomes that ensure humanitarian needs are met, while at the same time reducing risk and vulnerability over multiple years and based on the comparative advantage of a diverse range of actors. The primacy of humanitarian principles will continue to underpin humanitarian action.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need

5A
Invest in local capacities

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • Globally, UNICEF will increase the proportion of funds to local and national actors to at least 30% by 2018.
  • Financial
  • Invest in Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to empower national and local humanitarian action by increasing the share of financing accessible to local and national humanitarian actors and supporting the enhancement of their national delivery systems, capacities and preparedness planning.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

5B
Invest according to risk

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to accelerate the reduction of disaster and climate-related risks through the coherent implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, as well as other relevant strategies and programs of action, including the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to invest in risk management, preparedness and crisis prevention capacity to build the resilience of vulnerable and affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity

5D
Finance outcomes, not fragmentation: shift from funding to financing

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to enable coherent financing that avoids fragmentation by supporting collective outcomes over multiple years, supporting those with demonstrated comparative advantage to deliver in context.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to broaden and adapt the global instruments and approaches to meet urgent needs, reduce risk and vulnerability and increase resilience, without adverse impact on humanitarian principles and overall action (as also proposed in Round Table on "Changing Lives").
  • Invest in Humanity

5E
Diversify the resource base and increase cost-efficiency

Individual Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Commitment Type
  • Core Responsibility
  • UNICEF commits to seeking new ways to expand the pool of available resources, including by establishing new partnerships and pursuing innovative financing modalities such as Islamic financing, micro-levies and insurance-based mechanisms.
  • Financial
  • Invest in Humanity

  • UNICEF commits to adopt the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and International Aid Transparency Initiative Standard, with clear benchmarks for achieving these through the CHS Alliance self-assessment tool.


  • Policy
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity

Core Commitment

  • Commitment
  • Core Responsibility
  • Commit to increase substantially and diversify global support and share of resources for humanitarian assistance aimed to address the differentiated needs of populations affected by humanitarian crises in fragile situations and complex emergencies, including increasing cash-based programming in situations where relevant.
  • Change People's Lives: From Delivering Aid to Ending Need Invest in Humanity
  • Commit to promote and increase predictable, multi-year, unearmarked, collaborative and flexible humanitarian funding toward greater efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of humanitarian action for affected people.
  • Invest in Humanity